User:MuyCaro/Horacio de la Iglesia

Early Life and Education
Dr. Horacio de la Iglesia developed a fascination for animal behavior biology during his time as an undergraduate student at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) in Argentina after observing the burrowing patterns of the Southern King Crab– a delicacy in Argentina. His interests led him to take courses in ecology and molecular biology, completing a research intensive biology track. Under the guidance of faculty mentors at UBA, de la Iglesia studied how tides influenced the behavior and daily rhythms of Southern king crabs.

After completing his undergraduate studies at UBA, de la Iglesia moved to the U.S. to pursue a PhD in neuroscience and behavior at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass). There, he studied the neuroanatomy of the master circadian clock of mammals and the brain centers that control reproduction. After teaching a course at Harvard University in stem cells, he joined the University of Washington Department of Biology in 2003, reframing his research to focus on the physiological and behavioral impact of sleep on humans.

In response to Senator Patty Murray of Washington pushing for approval for the Sunshine Protection Act, Dr. de la Iglesia has expressed support for the permanent use of Standard Time in the United States as opposed to the biyearly change to and from Daylight Savings Time.

Fear entrainment in rats
De la Iglesia worked on a research project published in 2015 that assessed the role of threats in circadian rhythm entrainment in rats. Subjects would switch their natural foraging behaviors so as to not cooccur with the threatening stimulus. De la Iglesia and his colleagues were able to conclude that the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) as well as the amygdala are implicated as underlying mechanisms of this non-photic entrainment.

Sleep in adolescents
While at the University of Washington, de la Iglesia conducted research on teenagers in middle schools and high schools in Seattle, finding that only 2 out of the 282 participating adolescents got the 9 hours of sleep thought to be optimal for this age group. De la Iglesia used his work to advocate for a change in Seattle public school start times. Public schools in the area shifted their schedules back one hour for the 2016-2017 school year; after studying students before and after this schedule change, de la Iglesia reported an average 34 minute increase in sleep (considered a significant increase in the field of chronobiology) for students, as well as a general improvement in academic performance and decrease of absences.

Sleep and homelessness
De la Iglesia, alongside graduate student researcher Alicia Rice, started “The Sleep and Homelessness Project” in 2019 through the De la Iglesia Lab at the University of Washington. This project sought to investigate the relationship between chronic homelessness, sleep quality, and health outcomes in individuals suffering from homelessness in Seattle, WA. De la Iglesia and his team used actigraphy to measure the sleep cycles of their participants. They also conducted interviews with said participants, giving them an opportunity to voice how permanent homelessness has affected their sleep quality and subsequent well-being.

Sleep in medical residents
Dr. De la Iglesia also did research surrounding how sleep affects medical residents, specifically when in different shift-type conditions. De la Iglesia and his team either assigned physicians to an Extended Duration Work Roster (EDWR) condition, where shifts could be longer than 24 hours, or to a Rapid Cycling Work Roster (RCWR) condition, where shifts could not surpass a length of 16 consecutive hours. Results showed a wide variability between conditions, though it was clear that residents slept for significantly longer periods of time when in the RCWR condition. However, although physicians were able to treat more patients in the RCWR condition, they also made more serious errors when compared to the EDWR condition.

Sleep cycle synchronization to lunar cycles
In 2021, de la Iglesia and a team of researchers from the University of Washington, the National University of Quilmes in Argentina, and Yale University published research regarding how lunar cycles affect human sleep patterns. In both cities like Seattle, WA and indigenous areas like the Toba-Qom communities in northern Argentina, they showed that people’s sleep cycles oscillate with the 29.5 day lunar cycle. De la Iglesia and his team also found that several days before a full moon, people go to sleep later in the night and generally sleep for a short amount of time.

Positions and Achievements
Horacio de la Iglesia is currently a professor of biology at the University of Washington and an affiliate professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior. De la Iglesia is also president of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms and the International Society for Chronobiology, which are organizations dedicated to promoting research on circadian rhythms. In recognition of his research and teaching, de la Iglesia has received several honors including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2005 and the Outstanding Mentor Award from the University of Washington Graduate School in 2012. De la Iglesia’s most recent research has led to massive discoveries into how school start times and screen times late in the evening exacerbate sleep deprivation in US teenagers.

List of Selected Publications
(2000) Science (New York, N.Y.). “Antiphase oscillation of the left and right suprachiasmatic nuclei”

(2004) Current Biology. “Forced Desynchronization of Dual Circadian Oscillators within the Rat Suprachiasmatic Nucleus”

(2006) Endocrinology. “Minireview: Timely Ovulation: Circadian Regulation of the Female Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Gonadal Axis”

(2010) Frontiers In Bioscience (Elite edition). “Biological clocks and rhythms in intertidal crustaceans”

(2013) Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. “Chronobiology by Moonlight”

(2013) Current Biology. “Biological clocks: riding the tides”

(2015) Journal of Biological Rhythms. “Access to Electric Light Is Associated with Shorter Sleep Duration in a Traditionally Hunter-Gatherer Community”

(2018) Science - Science Advances. “Sleepmore in Seattle: Later school start times are associated with more sleep and better performance in high school students”

(2022) The Conversation: “School start times and screen time late in the evening exacerbate sleep deprivation in US teenagers”

(2022) Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton, N.J.). “Sleep Under Preindustrial Conditions: What We Can Learn from It”